held his heart
by arsenous elation
Summary: Question: Where does one bury one's sins? Answer: in the heart. -Eric B.-


Title: [draft] held his heart  
Character/s: Eric B.  
Summary: Question: Where does one bury one's sins? Answer: in the heart.

* * *

In the equation, who is the real sinner? The one who orders the kill or the one who pulls the trigger?

Long ago, Eric Byer would have made a brilliant philosopher. He possessed a unique form of rationality and equanimity. He could've been a magnificent lawyer too, with all of his justifications and unmistakable distinction between right and wrong. In grade school textbooks, he would be portrayed as the contemporary valiant hero, all glory and verve. It was a scholarly shame then, that he landed in the U.S. Air Force, became the overseer of Outcome and lost sight the naive line between good and evil.

—

But at first, the guilt almost drives him to insanity.

There is no vindication in sending out men to kill and then send them to their own deaths. To allow people to manipulate and tell lies for peace and other forms of collective security. To Eric, it feels like it is more self-serving rather than serving the country. There are too many secrets, too many conspiracies.

* * *

It is the Monk of Covert Ops who teaches Eric apathy and introduces him to instrumentalism.

"Kid, not everyone can be like us. It's difficult to play the game; to disregard all the human rules. In truth, there's no real line that divides man from other animals. We are the ones who make the distinction, to have a decent cause for humankind, pull the trigger and try to live with it after."

"Is that what you did in Tam Quan?" Eric asks in the heavy silence. He looks at the Monk directly in the eye. Searching for a sign of his guilt, of remorse.

"It's what I'm trying to do with Cain."

Behind his bifocals, Eric can find none.

* * *

Here in the clandestine part of the government, Eric learns that Niccolo Machiavelli is the true hero and his word is absolute truth.

_The end justifies the means._

* * *

He reads the program files of Operation Outcome and Treadstone and inwardly winces. _What the fuck is this? _He begins to ask, but two years later, with long hours of self-introspection and a great deal of restraint, he learns pragmatism and realism.

* * *

Working with the CIA has taught Eric a great many things. And among them: treason is not treason if it is solely for your country and its people. Death of one is inconsequential to the death of many. Murder is not murder if the purpose is rightful.

But it doesn't make it any less than what it is: a sin.

This Byer accepts. For he has accepted every variable, constant and doctrine there is. And he takes it upon himself to swallow all the wickedness, hail the destruction of men, clean up the residue, if need be. All as long the cause remains pristine.

Other men can bleed for the damned red stripe; Eric Byer will redeem and bleach the white.

* * *

"If the Monk were alive…"

Noah Vosen regards him with sagacious empathy.  
"No, Eric. Contemplating on the past ifs will not stop the future. Justification is not necessary. Serving your country and leaving it pure of our excrement is enough reason. That will be our job: we will eat offal while everyone is served well-done steak."

_but who butchers the animals?  
_"Does it matter? We are the ones who are reserved to pay for the crimes in hell."

Indeed, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

(Byer signs the Faustian pact and ascends to federal sainthood.)

* * *

When everything is falling apart and crashing all around him, Eric is visited by the man he has sought so hard to eliminate.

Do you know what a sin-eater is? Well that's what we are. We are the sin-eaters. It means that we take the moral excrement that we find in this equation and we bury it down deep inside of us so that the rest of our cause can stay pure. That is the job. We are morally indefensible and absolutely necessary.

The words had tumbled out of his mouth like gospel, and when Aaron Cross – butcher of animals, soldier of the state, repeats it to his face, they sound unencumbered. Free of their meaning. This is the moment that Eric realizes that men like Cross can never be taught how to eat sin. Aaron Cross is a fool. And a fool can never carry the weight of the world without dropping it. Eric has eaten enough transgressions to realize that little fact.

"Where do you keep it?"  
He stares at Cross through blood and bone, felled teeth in his bloodied mouth, "Keep what?"

"The moral excrement you sin-eaters eat."

It is in this moment that he is enlightened with a single, irrefutable truth:

He keeps all the immorality, the evil, the bitter taste of the equation (of all things) in his heart.  
And one day, the devil himself will make him eat it.

So Eric Byer laughs and laughs and points to his chest.

III  
In the desert  
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,  
who, squatting upon the ground,  
Held his heart in his hands,  
And ate of it.  
I said, "Is it good, friend?"  
"It is bitter – bitter," he answered;  
"But I like it  
Because it is bitter,  
And because it is my heart."  
-Stephen Crane, _The Black Riders and Other Lines_

* * *

Author's Note: 

The "Monk" mentioned herein refers to David Abbott a character from Robert Ludlum's novel _The Bourne Identity. _The references to Tam Quan and Cain are also from the book, where Cain is the twisted codename of Jason Bourne/David Webb. Although there's no connection between the novel and the Bourne Legacy movie, it occurred to me that putting a little denotation from the book might strengthen the fact that Eric Byer was somewhat associated with Treadstone's forerunners. Noah Vosen, the Blackbriar supervisor, appears _The Bourne Supremacy _film.

Anything from the Bourne Series, novel or film, is NOT mine.  
Thank you for reading!

**+_Added horizontal lines -_-_**


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